Jerry Zgoda missed the entire Kevin Garnett era, but he's back covering the Timberwolves after working the beat for their first four seasons two decades ago. In between, he covered a bit of everything: Gopher men's and women's basketball and NCAA athletics, golf, outdoor recreation, sports media and a little Vikings and Twins.

Griffin out for Clippers

Greetings from Target Center, where the Wolves will play the Clippers, starting in about an hour.

A few things from pre-game interviews with the coaches:

--Clippers power forward Blake Griffin will miss tonight's game due to back spasms.

--And Jamal Crawford, one of the best sixth men in the league, will also not play due to a sore calf that has been bothering him.

--Clippers coach Doc Rivers and Wolves president of basketball operations Flip Saunders had a rather lengthy pre-game meeting in Rivers’ office. The two go way back, of course. In 2001 Saunders was the head coach of the U.S. team in the Goodwill Games and Rivers was an assistant. And Saunders acted as a consultant for Rivers’ Celtics team during the playoffs two seasons ago.

--Rivers also gave a lot of praise to Wolves coach Rick Adelman, whose future coaching the Wolves is uncertain. Rivers said that, while coaching the Celtics, he copied one of Adelman’s plays and won a game with it. ‘’We called the play, ‘Adelman,’ ‘’ Rivers said.

--Wolves-wise, Adelman said Kevin Love, who talked about being exhausted after Sunday’s loss in Brooklyn, was OK to play tonight. And while he acknowledged that Love’s minutes are difficult ones considering the double-teams and physical play he deals with, he said Love has to play through it.

--Adelman also said he believes San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich deserves to be named coach of the year for the job he’s done with the Spurs this season.